Tania Pontbriand was convicted of sexual exploitation and sexual assault

GATINEAU — A former physical education teacher from Quebec has been sentenced to 20 months in jail for carrying on a two-year sexual relationship with a high school student.

Despite her pleas in Gatineau court Friday to serve her sentence in the community, Tania Pontbriand received an 18-month sentence for two counts of sexual exploitation and a 20-month sentence for one count of sexual assault. She will serve the sentences concurrently.

She was also sentenced to two years’ probation following her jail term.

Pontbriand was convicted of the three offences in January for having a sexual relationship with her student at a high school in Rosemere, Que., north of Montreal.

The two-year relationship started in 2002, when Pontbriand was 32 and the victim was 15. The victim went to police in 2007 and Pontbriand was charged the following year.

‘The sexual exploitation of a male adolescent by a female teacher must be punished just the same as a male posing the same actions towards a female adolescent’

Reacting emotionally at times during Justice Valmont Beaulieu’s hour-long sentencing Friday, Pontbriand stood impassively as she learned her fate.

However, she was visibly upset when the judge rejected her request to report to a Montreal jail in seven days, so as to have some more time with her two children before going to jail. Instead, she was taken straight into custody.

The Crown had been seeking 18 months to two years less a day of jail time. Prosecutor Caroline Lafleur said the judge’s decision sends a message that teachers must not abuse their positions of authority.

“Our teachers have a very important role in our society, and it’s important for them to follow the law,” she said. “We thought, because of the position she was in, she deserved to go to jail.”

The defence had asked for a conditional sentence to be served in the community.

Defence lawyer Hanan Mrani said that the judge missed “an excellent opportunity for a conditional sentence,” but declined to answer further questions.

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Pontbriand had about 10 family and friends in the courtroom supporting her, including her mother. They rushed out without speaking to reporters.

In a lengthy, 65-page decision, Beaulieu said Pontbriand betrayed not only the victim’s trust, but also that of his mother, school authorities and society.

“Students, parents, authorities and society have the right, not the privilege, to have full trust in their teachers in their roles of educating and instructing children and adolescents,” he wrote in French. “During the day, these teachers, in exercising their duties, continue the role of parental authority.”

Pontbriand’s family and friends had pleaded with the judge to let her serve a sentence in the community; she has two young children and has already lost her job and reputation as a result of the case.

Beaulieu said he carefully weighed the consequences a jail sentence would create for the family environment but added: “The court is satisfied that in the present case, the need to denounce is so pressing that incarceration is the only suitable sentence to express society’s disapproval of the accused’s behaviour.”

He also noted that there shouldn’t be a lesser punishment because the victim was a young man and the offender was a woman.

“The sexual exploitation of a male adolescent by a female teacher must be punished just the same as a male posing the same actions towards a female adolescent,” he wrote.

The victim, now in his 20s, said in a statement read at the June sentencing hearing that Pontbriand systematically alienated him from his friends and family “so as to satisfy her own egoistic and sexual desires.”

“I was far too naïve at the time to recognize her lies and manipulation,” he wrote.

The victim told police he and Pontbriand had more than 200 sexual encounters throughout the two-year relationship.